Saturday, December 10, 2011

Great article from the Red and Black on Jarod Mainland and his relationship with Connor Nolte.

Jarod needed a lift to his spirits after undergoing surgery and treatment for his brain cancer. Connor Nolte, having suffered a broken nose and other injuries was the perfect person to connect with Jarod.

I hadn't realized that we were the poorest shooting and lowest scoring team in the SEC. We may have played some tougher teams than others, but Georgia Tech is no world-beater on defense, and I think we lowered our shooting percentage against them.

Just in case the story linked above is ever removed, I quote below just a portion of the article. How did UGA manage to lose to Tech at home? Here's how:

"Adding to the home team's frustration, their defense was unable to hold off Georgia Tech big men Daniel Miller and Kammeon Holsey, forcing them to go zone and opening the door for the Jackets outside game, which also worked.

The combination resulted in a 68-56 victory for Georgia Tech (5-4).

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Yellow Jackets and was the first in 14 tries at Stegeman Coliseum, ending a 35-year drought there.

"We just wanted to make them shoot over us," said Tech Head Coach Brian Gregory, who was six years old the last time the Yellow Jackets emerged from Stegeman with a win, back in 1976. "Our defense right now is one guy guards the ball and four guys cover. In the first half it was too much one-on-one defensively. In the second half the guys did a better job of helping out."

Georgia (4-5) lost its fourth straight game and second in a row at home. The Bulldogs made only 8 of 26 shots (30.8 percent) in the second half and hit only 17 for 49 for the game (34.7) percent for the game, while making only six of 23 three-point attempts (26.1 percent)."

"Their defense in the second half was better than our offense," said Georgia Head Coach Mark Fox. "Our interior play is very poor right now. We're not getting any interior scoring and so we're settling for outside shots and that is an issue with our team right now."

The struggles on the interior led to the domination of Tech bigs Daniel Miller and Kammeon Holsey, who combined for 22 points on 11-for-14 shooting and keyed a 34-14 edge in points in the paint.

"It's just getting it done in the post," said Miller, who got it done on both ends, as he had a game-high nine rebounds and four blocked shots — one more than the entire UGA team. "The men were guarding behind us and I'm playing really well with Kam right now."

"It was getting the ball inside, knowing they can't guard us one-on-one," said Holsey, who was 6-for-9 from the field. "Just making quick moves and decisive moves."

We can't score inside, and we are getting dominated by Daniel Miller. Karma.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

At home, no less. Hard to admit it, but we're worse than I thought we would be. We can still improve, obviously. The problem is that we have so far to go.

We lost 68 to 56. Nobody shot particularly well, with the exception of Gerald Robinson. The most telling stat was the lack of production from our big men. Four points from our post players on 2 of 11 shooting. A total of 77 minutes between five players. Just 14 boards between them.

Daniel Miller was the difference in this game. Guy shot 5 of 5 from the floor. Had 10 points, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks. Would be nice to have him in a Georgia uniform. If Fox came in three years ago and as one of his first official acts sort of showed Miller the door, he surely regrets it now. It was a mistake then, in my opinion, because Miller was a 6' 11" guy with a big frame and good fundamentals. Coordinated. High academics and a good team player. All he needed was strength and conditioning and enough time to get used to the competition. Besides Miller's stature and upside potential, my opinion on the Miller scholarship was that it was an institutional integrity issue. In other words, UGA should have honored its commitment to Miller and his family, despite the fact that Coach Felton was let go.

Enough on that topic.

I don't think we game-planned well for tonight's contest. Have no idea why we didn't start the game with the press. They only had one legitimate point guard available. The one time that we did go to a press we got a turnover and a bucket.

I also disagree with Fox on his substitution patterns. He seems to pull guys just when they're getting in a rhythm. Guys are used to playing a lot of basketball. They have enough stamina. Let'em play until it's obvious they need a blow or until they're not shooting well any longer.

Another suggestion is that we need to get some other plays. We run the triangle exclusively. Instead of playing to drive the ball to the basket, we run players off of screens to shoot threes. We don't have good catch and shoot guys, though. There is no Ricky McPhee this year. We need to emphasize a couple of isolation plays so that Robinson and Caldwell-Pope can take their guys off the dribble.

Once again right at 50 percent of our shots were three-pointers. That is not a winning strategy. Certainly not when we're making only one of four from behind the arc. They attempted 12 three-pointers to our 23. They adjusted at half-time and once again we did not.

We're 4 and 5 on the year and I'm not sure we have the horses to be competitive in the SEC. Trying to stay upbeat but to lose by double figures at home to Tech is hard to swallow.